BackupBuddy 5.0 is Coming with 80+ Features & Enhancements

We thought we’d give a few sneak peeks of some of the new things (coming soon!) in BackupBuddy 5.0. This release includes over 80+ new features and enhancements.

Some things will be obvious (like the new UI for the Backups page, Remote Destinations and ImportBuddy) andtake BackupBuddy’s backup abilities to the next level (with *new* database rollback functionality). Some are behind-the-scenes improvements, focusing on improving core functionality on both the backup and restore side.

Performance, robustness and usability have all been improved in BackupBuddy 5.0. This means that BackupBuddy and ImportBuddy are easier to use (and better on the eye!) and can better handle larger sites, especially large databases.

New, Improved UI for Backups, Remote Destinations and ImportBuddy

The Backups Page, Remote Destinations and all of ImportBuddy have new, improved UIs. These updates have focused on improving the user experience and making the process of running backups, managing remote destinations and migrating/restoring your WordPress sites easier and more intuitive.

Old Backups Page

The Backups Page has gotten a major overhaul to highlight the backup process with active status updates during the backup progression. Backup details are now displayed as the backup runs, providing help as needed. The Status Log is now available in a new tab, so you can still see the details of the backup process.

New Backups Page

Old Remote Destinations Page

The Remote Destinations Page includes a new destinations UI with a tabbed display of destinations. Remote destination files & management are now displayed when viewing the remote destination page tabs for easy viewing and managing remote files.

New Remote Destinations Page

Old ImportBuddy

ImportBuddy also includes a new, improved user interface. Behind the scenes, the database migration step migrates URLs, paths, etc. in chunks to handle larger databases. ImportBuddy also includes a new option to select whether to restore files and/or the database during the ImportBuddy restore when dealing with full backups.

New ImportBuddy

Join us for the BackupBuddy 5.0 Launch Webinar with Lead Developer Dustin Bolton

See all the new features in BackupBuddy 5.0 this Friday, August 22 @ 1 p.m. (CDT). BackupBuddy’s Lead Developer, Dustin Bolton, will walk through what’s new in 5.0 and why this is the best version yet.

Still don’t have BackupBuddy?

With BackupBuddy, you can back up, restore and migrate your WordPress sites, easily. Get BackupBuddy today to get access to the 5.0 update! BackupBuddy 5.0 will be an automatic update for all current BackupBuddy customers.

Good News,
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Hope to new version of BackupBuddy will be saving all stored files on the wp-site without ‘generic zip file format compatibility’ issue.
This application is very helpfull & Have to Have application for us.
Thank you.

Im sorry you are experiencing some zip issues. This issue is very host specific. As some hosts block access to the command line zip or Backupbuddy cant find the exec zip command on your server because it may be in a non-generic place. If you want to drop a line in the support forum we can try and find out why BB is having zip issues on your server. Thanks for using and supporting BB as it has really grown into a great product.

BackupBuddy currently does not do incremental backups – each full (files + database) or database-only or files-only backup is complete and self-contained to the extent that you want it to be by virtue of whatever file/directory/table exclusions you may choose to make.

BackupBuddy also provides Backup Profiles through which you can define a number of different profiles where you can define the type of “base” backup (Full, Database Only or Files only) and within the profile define profile specific exclusions.

So, for example, you may have one “main” Full backup that includes the “guts” of the site that you would need to get the site back up and running on a restore or migration and then additional backups from defined profiles that might contain stuff (files generally) that changes less frequently (if at all). That way your main backup is smaller and faster. Following this type of approach you always have a backup that you can use for a restore/migrate with just that one single backup file and the restore/migration tool and you don’t need to be “assembling” a number of incremental backups just to get the site up and running again, you just use the additional backups to add the additional stuff (such as previous years media uploads for example) once the site is back up and functioning.

In BackupBuddy 5.0, multisite is still in Beta. And it will continue to be in Beta until it becomes more portable. As of right now, because of how multisite works, Backupbuddy can’t backup and restore in some cases. We can’t push out functionality unless it works for everyone.

do you have specifics about when BB + multisite fails? I really need the multisite functionality; I really need to be able to export a single site from a multi-site and put it into a different multisite. And, it would be very nice to be able to allow individual site admins to schedule backups.

Im sure Dustin Bolton the developer can give you more exact reasons. But i can try to answer to the best of my knowledge. But exporting or importing a single site is difficult because a subsite in a network is not at all like a regular wordpress install. So when Backupbuddy is exporting a single site it has to basically take all of the pieces that it needs(users, media, database options) and construct a new wordpress install with parts from a subsite and have them all in the right place. This can be difficult because of the way some people have their multsites setup. Same with importing a site. Backupbuddy has to deconstruct a regular wordpress install and then reconstruct the site within the network. There is nothing with in WordPress that helps this process so it is all custom work. WordPress multisite isnt really designed to export/import singles sites. And what if your network is heavily customized outside of the normal default wordpress setup? Backupbuddy would have to account for that. So there is just a lot of technical limitations that comes with migrating/restoring a network, and importing/exporting single sites. I’ll email Dustin and see if he can reply here with a more detailed answer.

Looks great and looking forward to the performance improvements. Have some large sites that have issues even though I have a high PHP max execution time and memory allowance. Large DB import sometimes fails, too. Would be happy to provide you with a sample backupbuddy archive to test with, if you’d like.

Hope you have a big button to set up the recommended schedule: daily DB backup and full weekly backup. It would be very convenient to just be able to set those two with just one click!

Thanks for using and supporting Backupbuddy. Sorry to hear you are having issues getting your DB to import. If you would drop a line in the support forum im sure one of the support techs would try out your backups. You may have some large tables that a rogue plugin has made or something like that causing BB to fail importing the database. Posting in the support forum is definitely your best bet.

And upon installing BB 5.0 you will get the option to quickly setup scheduled backups. So basically a couple options(email, password for backups) with a big button. Just so you can quickly get started making backups.

What might the progress for Google Drive implementation be? I’m looking at buying BackupBuddy and this is the only thing stopping me. I notice that BackWPup Pro has Google Drive implemented. Perhaps that’s a better fit?

Backupbuddy works under whatever resources your hosts allows. It looks like they are only allotting you 128 mb of php memory. Have you tried asking your host if they can increase this for you? Have you posted in the support forum to see if there is a setting that may help this issue? Backupbuddy cant do anything about any limit your host sets. Maybe try turning of integrity check or zip compression to lower Backupbuddy’s memory consumption.

If you are still having issues please try dropping a line in the Backupbuddy forum and im sure they can help you out.

I love Backup Buddy – the only problem I run across is in creating complete backups – sometimes they stall and won’t complete, on sites that don’t seem very big. I would love for the new version to address functionality issues such as this – the cosmetics are fine as is.

These types of issues usually stem from issues such as server speed/ not enough allotted resources from your host. Or running out of memory because your trying to zip up a large site on a small server. So it could be a number of things why your Backups are failing. Nothing to do with functionality of Backupbuddy(backupbuddy just runs zip commands on your server to backup your site) but how Backupbuddy is performing in your server environment.

But if your having issues i would definitely drop a line in the backupbuddy forum and im sure they can help you out there.

This is great news! I’ve been struggling to get the settings tweaked just right to facilitate backing up my large-ish site, as well as trying to find the sweet spot for sending chunked backups to Dropbox. Hopefully the updates in v5 will help address one (or both) of those challenges.

Always good to hear of continuing improvement Josh.
I have couple questions
1. I am with Hostgator – on shared server which is getting crappier by the week. If i chose to migrate – can I use BB to do that ?
2. Can you recommend a good on-video walk-though of an entire Restoring of a Website?
3. I back up manually. Is it ok to deactivate BB when not in use ( Hostgator again – telling me I have too many active plugins.)
BB takes up about 10% of CPU load – even when not in use according to P3 Plugin profile so it makes sense to e to have it off when not being used

3.) Yes its okay to deactivate BB when not in use. and i find it odd that a hosting company is telling you that you have too many plugins active. and BB has crons scheduled so that even when you are not using it, it will continue to check for cleanup and it will check the integrity of the backup i think once a day. And i havent used P3 so im not sure how it gets that figure. but i can assure you it doesnt take up that much on a good server when its not backing up. it may get to 10% when backing up.

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